Russia’s Vladimir Putin dials back tensions in Ukraine

It is hard to say yet. But the Russian president appeared to do an uncharacteristic about-face Wednesday, calling for an end to political violence in eastern Ukraine that western governments believe the Kremlin has been orchestrating, and saying he had ordered tens of thousands of Russian troops camped near the Ukrainian border to return to their bases.

Putin further dialed back tensions in the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk by urging pro-Russia separatists here to call off a referendum on independence planned for this Sunday.

Whether pro-Russian separatists, who often have demonstrated minds of their own, will heed Putin’s thunderbolts is one of many open questions. The immediate reaction of their leadership was to say they would gather Thursday to discuss the question.

Something else the secessionists will have to consider is that Putin also said Wednesday that the May 25 Ukrainian presidential elections are “a step in the right direction,” if the rights of the ethnic-Russian minority are respected. Only 24 hours earlier, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had demanded that the ballot be postponed. And Putin’s spokesman had previously described the election as “absurd.”

Left unclear in Putin’s statement was whether Russia still reserved the right to intervene if it considered the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine were threatened.

Conciliatory moves were necessary “to launch direct, genuine, full-fledged dialogue” between the government in Kyiv and people in eastern Ukraine,” Putin told Swiss President Didier Burkhalter, who is president of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which has been trying to mediate the Ukrainian crisis.

Western leaders and Ukraine’s acting government will have been caught flat-footed by Putin’s comments. They will undoubtedly wonder whether his words were sincere or part of an unexpected gambit to try to achieve de facto control of Ukraine by other means. They are likely to be skeptical of what appears to be a softening of Russia’s hawkish stance until they see tangible proof that Putin meant what he said.

A man guards a road intersection as pro-Russian activists strengthen the barricades in front of the Ukrainian regional office of the Security Service in Slovyansk, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

For example, will secessionists stop storming government buildings and retreat from a battle with Ukrainian troops who have surrounded them in the city of Slavyansk? And are Russian forces actually headed back to their barracks? After Putin spoke, news agencies reported that the Pentagon and NATO said that they had not seen any proof.

Could Russia’s climbdown, if that is what it was, have been because of the bite of western sanctions and the threat of more if it continued to bully Ukraine? Perhaps, but frankly, the sanctions have been fairly tame.

Could Putin’s change of heart have been because while seizing Crimea from Ukraine in March was easy, every indication is that a military intervention in Ukraine, or open military support for separatists there, would result in a protracted, brutal conflict similar to those that once rent the Balkans?

Or was it the high cost of taking responsibility for Crimea, which is an economic basket case, or the potential for more staggering bills if Moscow became responsible for millions more eastern Ukrainians? That’s possible, as the Russian economy is in rough shape anyway, but that has not previously been much of a consideration in Russia’s thinking.

Yet another factor may be that Putin was disappointed that despite fiery nationalist rhetoric from Moscow, and a lot of logistical support for separatist fighters, there had not been a widespread popular uprising against Kyiv in eastern Ukraine. Rather, there have been isolated examples of opportunistic thuggery by shadowy groups of men, armed with clubs and wearing masks, who claimed to love Russia.

Polls showing that more than 70 per cent of the people in the east wish to remain Ukrainian have not helped Russia’s ambitions here. However, it must be said that whether for or against closer ties with Russia, virtually the entire Donbass mining region has been demanding a new constitutional deal from Kyiv with much stronger regional powers.

The initial reaction to Putin’s ruminations in this industrial city, which considers itself the heart of Russian nationalism in Ukraine, were relief mixed with disbelief. There had been fears of bloody clashes during celebrations on Friday to mark the end of what Russians and Ukrainians regard as the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany.

Plans for Sunday’s referendum are already far advanced. Voter rolls had been prepared. Three million ballots had been printed. But even the organizers have admitted they didn’t expect more than a third of the population to come out and vote.

Whether Putin was sincere about withdrawing his troops from the border and respecting the Ukrainian presidential elections, there is also the grave matter of the Russian takeover of Crimea and what exactly the Russian leader meant about the need for dialogue over Ukraine’s future. Perhaps the only certainty is that relations between the Kremlin and the West are likely to remain immensely complicated and volatile for a long time.

Matthew Fisher is Postmedia's international affairs columnist and Canada's longest serving foreign correspondent. He has lived and worked abroad for 31 years in Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and... read more, more recently, Afghanistan. His assignments have taken him to 162 countries, all U.S. states, Canadian provinces and territories, above the North Pole and to an iceberg over the Magnetic North Pole. During his travels he has been an eyewitness to 19 wars and conflicts. The personal highlight of his career as a roaming correspondent was when he attended Nelson Mandela's inauguration in Pretoria.View author's profile